The Mine With The Iron Door By Harold Bell Wright

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Title: The Mine with the Iron Door

Author: Harold Bell Wright

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR ***

THE MINE

WITH THE IRON DOOR

BOOKS BY

HAROLD BELL WRIGHT

THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S

THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS

THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS

THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH

THEIR YESTERDAYS

THE EYES OF THE WORLD

WHEN A MAN’S A MAN

THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT

THE UNCROWNED KING

HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE

THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR

D. APPLETON & COMPANY

New York
London

SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE ARM.... “THE SHERIFF IS HERE!”

THE MINE

WITH THE IRON

DOOR

A ROMANCE

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BY

HAROLD BELL WRIGHT

AUTHOR OF “HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE,” “THE

SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS,” “THE WINNING

OF BARBARA WORTH,” ETC.

THE RYERSON PRESS

TORONTO

1923

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO

MY FRIENDS

IN THE OLD PUEBLO

TUCSON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
PAGE

I. THE CAÑON OF GOLD
1

II. AT THE ORACLE STORE
7

III. THE PARDNERS’ GIRL
13

IV. SAINT JIMMY
25

V. THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY
34

VI. NIGHT
45

VII. THE STRANGER’S QUEST
50

VIII. THE NEW NEIGHBOR
58

IX.“GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT”
80

X. SUMMER
90

XI. THE LIZARD
103

XII. GHOSTS
108

XIII. THE AWAKENING
120

XIV. THE STORM
132

XV. MARTA’S FLIGHT
149

XVI. NATACHEE
156

XVII. THE SHERIFF’S VISIT
172

XVIII. AN INDIAN’S ADVICE
185

XIX. ON EQUAL TERMS
191

XX. THE ONLY CHANCE
196

XXI. THE WAY OF A RED MAN
208

XXII. THE LOST MINE
217

XXIII. SONORA JACK
225

XXIV. THE WAY OF A WHITE MAN
235

XXV. THE WAYS OF GOD
247

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XXVI. TRAGEDY
256

XXVII. ON THE TRAIL
263

XXVIII. THE OUTLAWS
276

XXIX. THE RESCUE
291

XXX. PARDNERS STILL
305

XXXI. THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION
312

XXXII. REVELATION
320

XXXIII. GOLD
324

XXXIV. MORNING
330

XXXV. FREEDOM
337

THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR

CHAPTER I

THE CAÑON OF GOLD

And yet—those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del Oro. Romance and

adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine
behind an iron door.

ROM every street and corner in Tucson we see the mountains. From our places of business, from our railway depots and hotels,
from our University campus and halls, and from the windows and porches of our homes we look up to the mighty hills.

But of all the peaks and ranges that keep their sentinel posts around this old pueblo there are none so bold in the outlines of their

granite heights and rugged cañons, so exquisitely beautiful in their soft colors of red and blue and purple, or so luring in the call of their
remote and hidden fastnesses, as the Santa Catalinas.

Every morning they are there—looking down upon our little city in the desert with a brooding, Godlike tolerance—remote yet

very near. All day long they watch with world-old patience our fretful activities, our puny strivings and our foolish pretenses. And when
evening is come and the dusk of our desert basin deepens, their castle crags and turret peaks signal, with the red fire of the sunset,
“good-night” to us who dwell in the gloom below. Even in the darkness we see their shadowy might against the sky, and feel the still
and solemn mystery of their enduring strength under the desert stars.

This is a story of some people who lived in the Catalinas.
If you would find more exactly the scenes of this romance you must take the new Bankhead Highway that, in its course from

Tucson to Florence and Phœnix, runs for miles in the shadow of these mountains. From the old Mexican quarter of the city—
picturesque still with the colorful life of the West that is vanishing—you go straight north on Main Street, where the dust of your passing
is the dust of the crumbled adobe buildings and fortifications of the ancient pueblo that had its beginning somewhere in the forgotten
centuries. Leaving the outskirts of the town your way leads over rolling lands of greasewood and cacti, down the long grade past the
cemetery, past the Government hospital in the valley, to the bridge that spans the Rillito. From the little river you climb quickly up to the
desert slopes that form the western base of the main range and that lie under their wide skies unmarked by human hands since the
beginning of deserts and mountains. Beyond the famous Steam Pump Ranch, some sixteen miles from Tucson, the road to Oracle
branches off from the Bankhead Highway and climbs higher and higher until from a wide mesa you can see the place of my story—the
mighty Cañada del Oro—the Cañon of Gold.

But if you know the way you may turn aside from the main road before you come to this new Oracle branch and take instead the

old road that winds closer to the mountains and for several miles follows the bed of the lower cañon. It was along this ancient trail that
the eventful and romantic life of this southern Arizona country, through its many ages, moved.

This way, centuries ago, came the Spaniards—lured by tales of a strange people who used silver and gold as we use tin and iron,

and who set turquoise in the gates of their houses. This way came the Franciscan Fathers to find in the Cañada del Oro gold for their
mission at San Xavier. This way, from the San Pedro and the Aravaipa, came savage Apache to raid the peaceful farming Papagos
and later to war against the pale-face settlers in the valley of the Santa Cruz. Prehistoric races, explorers, Indians, priests, pioneers,
prospectors, cattlemen, soldiers and adventurers of every sort from every land—all, all have come this way—along this old road
through the Cañon of Gold.

And because there was water here, and because there was gold here, this wild and adventurous life, through the passing

centuries, made this place a camping ground and a battle field—a place of labor and crime, of victory and defeat; of splendid heroism,
noble sacrifice, and dreadful fear. Set amid the grandeur and the beauty of these vast deserts, lonely skies and wild and rugged

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mountains, the Cañada del Oro has been, most of all, as indeed it is to-day, a place of dreams that never came true; of hopes that
were never fulfilled; of labor that was vain.

Of all the stirring tales of this picturesque region of the Santa Catalinas, of all the romantic legends and traditions that have come

down to us from its shadowy past, none is more filled with the essence of human life and love and hopes and dreams than is the tale of
the Mine with the Iron Door.

But this is not a story of those old Spaniards and padres and Indians and pioneers. It is a story of to-day.
The old, old tale of the Mine with the Iron Door is as true for us as it ever was for those who lived and loved so many years ago.

We too, in these days, have our dreams that must remain always, merely dreams and nothing more. We too, in these modern times,
are called upon to bury in the secret places of our modern hearts hopes that are dead. In every life there are the ashes of fires that have
burned out or, by some cold fate, have been extinguished. For every living one of us, I believe, there is a Cañada del Oro—a Cañon
of Gold—there is a lost mine that will never be found—there are iron doors that may never be opened.

And yet—those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold.

The treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron door.

As the old prospector, Thad Grove, said to his pardner one time when their last pinch of dust was gone and their most promising

lead had pinched out: “After all, it’s a dead immortal cinch that if we had a-happened to strike it rich like we was hopin’, we couldn’t
never bin as rich as we was hopin’ to be. There jest naterally ain’t that much gold, nohow.”

“Sure,” returned Bob Hill, the other old-timer, “and ain’t you never took notice how much richer a feller with one poor, little, old

nugget in his pan is than the hombre what only thinks he’s got a bonanza somewheres on the insides of a mountain? An’ look at this,
will you: If everybody was to certain sure find the mine he’s huntin’ there’d be so blame much gold in the world that it’d take a
hundred-mule train to pack enough to buy a mess of frijoles. It’s a good thing, I say, that somebody, er something has fixed it
somehow so’s all our fool dreams can’t come true.”

“Speakin’ of love,” said Thad on another occasion, when the two were discussing the happiness that had so strangely come to

them with their partnership daughter, “love ain’t no big deposit that a feller is allus hopin’ to find but mostly never does. Love is jest a
medium high-grade ore that you got to dig for.”

“Yep,” agreed Bob, “an’ when you’ve got your ore you’ve sure got to run it through the mill an’ treat it scientific if you expect to

recover much of the values.”

The affairs of the old Pardners and their daughter Marta were matters of great and never-failing interest to the loungers who

gathered in front of the general store and post-office in Oracle.

Bill Janson, known as the Lizard, invariably opened and led the discussions. The Janson family, it should be said, had drifted into

the Cañada del Oro from Arkansas. They were, in the picturesque vernacular of the cattlemen, “nesters.” The Lizard, an only son, was
one of those rat-faced, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed, male creatures who know everything about everybody and spend the major part
of their days telling it.

It was on one of those social occasions when the Lizard was entertaining a group of idlers on the platform in front of the store that

I first heard of the two old prospectors and their partnership girl.

CHAPTER II

AT THE ORACLE STORE

“My Gawd! Hit’s enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony, a-tryin’ t’ figger hit out.”

ES, sir,” said the Lizard, “I’m a-tellin’ ye that them thar Pardners an’ their gal—Marta her name is—are th’ beatenest outfit ye
er ary other man ever seed. Ain’t nobody kin figger ’em out, nohow. They’ve been here nigh about five year, too. Me an’ paw

an’ maw, we been here eight year ourselves—comin’ this fall. Yes, sir, they’re sure a queer actin’ lot.”

The Lizard had so evidently made his introductory remarks for my benefit that some sort of acknowledgment was unquestionably

due.

“What are they, miners?”
“Uh-huh, they’re a-workin’ a claim—makin’ enough t’ live on, I reckon—leastways they’re a-livin’. But that ain’t hit—hit’s that

thar gal of theirn.” He shook his head and heaved a troubled sigh. “Law, law!”

And no one could have failed to mark the eager viciousness of the Lizard’s expression as the loose-mouthed creature ruminated

on the delectable gossip he was about to offer.

“Ye see hit’s like this: Them two old-timers had this here gal with ’em when they first come into th’ cañon down yonder. She was

a kid—’long ’bout fourteen, then. An’ there ain’t nobody kin tell fer sure who she is, ner whar she come from. They say as how old
Bob an’ Thad found her when they was a-prospectin’ onct down on th’ border somewhares—tuck her away from some Mexican
outfit er other. Mebby hit’s so an’ mebby hit ain’t. But everybody ’lows as how she ain’t come from no good sort nohow, ’cause if she
had why wouldn’t the Pardners tell hit? An’ take an’ look at this dad-beatin’ father arrangement—take their names fer instance: one is
Bob Hill, t’other is Thad Grove, an’ what’s the gal’s name but Marta Hillgrove—Hill-Grove—d’ye ketch hit? An’ one week old Bob
he’ll be her pappy, an’ th’ next week old Thad he’s her paw, an’ the gal she jist naterally ’lows they both her daddies. My Gawd!
Hit’s enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony a-tryin’ t’ figger hit out.”

The Lizard’s friends laughed.
“Oh, ye kin laugh, but I’m a-tellin’ ye thar’s somethin’ wrong somewhars an’ I ain’t th’ only one what says so neither. Won’t

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nobody over here in Oracle have nothin’ t’ do with her. Will they?” He turned to the loungers for confirmation.

“She’s a plumb beauty, too, an’ a mighty cute little piece—reg’lar spitfire, if ye git her started—an’ smart—say, she bosses them

pore old Pardners till they’re scared mighty nigh t’ death of her—an’ proud—huh—she’s too all-fired proud to suit some of us.”

The crowd grinned.
“The Lizard, he sure ought to know,” said one.
“How about it, Lizard?” came from another. “You been a-tryin’ t’ make up t’ her ever since she moved into your neighborhood,

ain’t you?”

“Ye all don’t need to mind about me,” retorted the Lizard, with a vicious leer. “My day’ll happen along yet. Ye notice I ain’t

drawed what Chuck Billings got.”

“Chuck Billings,” he continued for the benefit of any one who might not be well versed in Cañada del Oro history, “he was one of

George Wheeler’s punchers, an’ he tuck up with her one evenin’ when she was a-comin’ home from Saint Jimmy’s, an’ I’ll be dad-
burned if her old prospectin’ daddies didn’t work on Chuck ’til George jist naterally had t’ send him int’ th’ hospital at Tucson. Chuck
he ain’t never showed up in this neighborhood since neither. I heard as how George told him if he did get well an’ dast t’ come back
he’d take a try at him hisself.”

“Good for George!”
“Heh? What’s that?”
“Does George Wheeler live in the Cañada del Oro, too?”
“Naw, Wheeler he’s got a big cow ranch jist back here from Oracle a piece. George he rides all th’ cañon country though—him

an’ his punchers. An’ us folks down in th’ cañon we go through his hoss pasture when we come up here t’ Oracle fer anythin’. George
an’ his wife they’re ’bout th’ only folks what’ll have any truck with that pardnership gal. But shucks, George an’ his wife they’d be
good t’ anybody. Take Saint Jimmy an’ his maw now, they have her ’round of course.”

“Saint Jimmy is your minister, I suppose?”
“He’s what?”
“A minister—clergyman, you know—a preacher.”
“Oh, ye mean a parson—Shucks! Naw, Saint Jimmy he’s jist one of these here fellers what’s everybody’s friend. He lives with

his maw up on th’ mountain ’bove Juniper Spring, ’bout three mile from Wheeler’s ranch, jist off th’ cañon trail after ye come up into
th’ hills. A little white house hit is. You kin see hit easy from most anywheres. His real name’s Burton. He’s a doctor, er was ’fore he
got t’ be a lunger. He was a-livin’ back East when he tuk sick. Then him an’ his maw they come t’ this country. He’s well enough here,
’pears like; but they do say he dassn’t never leave Arizona an’ go back t’ his doctorin’ agin like he was. He’s a funny cuss—plays th’
flute t’ beat anythin’. You kin hear him ’most any time of a pretty evenin’. He’ll roost up on some rock on th’ side of th’ mountain
somewhares an’ toot away ’til plumb midnight; but he won’t never play when ye ask him, ner fer any of th’ dances we have over here
in Oracle neither. I heard George Wheeler say onct as how Saint Jimmy war right smart of a doctor back t’ his home whar he come
from. You see, Saint Jimmy he’s been a-teachin’ this here gal of th’ Pardners book larnin’.”

The Lizard opened his wide mouth in a laugh which showed every yellow tooth in his head. “I’ll say he’s a-teachin’ her. I’ve seed

’em together up on th’ mountains an’ in th’ cañon more’n onct—book larnin’—huh! Ye don’t need t’ take my word fer hit neither—ye
kin ask anybody ’bout what decent folks thinks of Marta Hillgrove. She——“

How much more the Lizard would have said on his favorite topic will never be known for at that moment a man appeared in the

open doorway of the store.

Not one of the group of loungers spoke, but every eye was turned on the man who stood looking them over with such cool

contempt.

He was dressed in the ordinary garb of civilization, but his dark, impassive countenance, with the raven-black hair and eyes, was

not to be mistaken. The man was an Indian.

Presently, without a word, the red man stepped past the loungers and walked away up the road.
Silently they watched until the Indian was out of sight.
The Lizard drew a long breath.
“That thar’s Natachee. He’s Injun. Lives all alone somewheres in th’ mountains, away up at th’ head of th’ Cañada del Oro. He’s

one of them thar school Injuns. Talks like a reglar book when he wants t’, but mostly he won’t say nothin’ t’ nobody. Wears white
clothes all right, like ye see, when he has t’ come t’ town fer anythin’; but out in th’ mountains he goes ’round jist like all th’ Injuns used
to. Which goes t’ show, I claim, that an Injun’s an Injun no matter how much ye try t’ larn him.”

“That’s right,” agreed one of the listeners.
“He’s a real sociable cuss, ain’t he?” commented another with a grin.
“Him an’ Saint Jimmy’s friendly enough,” said the Lizard, “an’ I know th’ old Pardners claim he ain’t no harm. But I ain’t havin’

no truck with him myself. This here’s a white man’s country, I say.”

A chorus of “You bet!” “That’s what!” and “You’re a-shoutin’!” approved the Lizard’s sentiments.
Then another voice said:
“Do you reckon this here Natachee really knows anything about that old lost mine in the cañon, like some folks seem to think?”
The Lizard wagged his head in solemn and portentous silence, signifying that, however ready he might be to talk about the

Pardners’ girl, the Mine with the Iron Door was not a subject to be lightly discussed in the presence of a stranger.

CHAPTER III

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THE PARDNERS’ GIRL

“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest can’t have two

fathers.”

HE house in the Cañon of Gold where the Pardners and their girl lived was little more than a cabin of rough, unpainted boards. But
there was a wide porch overrun with vines, and a vegetable garden with flowers. Beyond the garden there was a rude barn or

shelter, built as the Indians build, of sahuaro poles and mud, with a small corra made of thorny ocotillo, and the place as a whole was
roughly inclosed by an old fence of mesquite posts and barbed wire. On every side the mountains rose—ridge and dome and peak—
into the sky, and night and day, through summer droughts and winter rains, the cañon creek murmured or sang or roared on its way
from the woodsy heart of the Catalinas to lose itself in the sandy wastes of the desert below. The little mine where the Pardners
worked was across the creek a hundred yards or more from the kitchen door.

It was that time of the year when, if the rain gods of the Indians have been kind, the deserts and mountains of Arizona riot in a

blaze of color. On the mountain sides, silvery white Apache plumes and graceful wands of brilliant scarlet mallow were nodding amid
the lilac of the loco-weed, while, in every glade and damp depression, the gold of the buck-bean shone in settings of brightest green.
And on the cañon floor, the pink white bloom of cañon anemone, with yellow primroses and whispering bells, made points and patches
of light in the shadow of the rocky walls.

It is not enough to say that the Pardners’ girl fully justified the Lizard’s somewhat qualified admiration. There was something more

—something that neither the Lizard nor his kind could appreciate. She was rather boyish, perhaps, as girls reared in the healthful out-
of-door atmosphere are apt to be, but it was a dainty boyishness—if sturdy—that in no way marred the exquisite feminine qualities of
her beauty. Her hair and eyes were dark, and her cheeks richly colored with good health and sunshine; and she looked at one with a
disconcerting combination of innocence and frankness which, together with the charm of her sex, was certain to fix the attention of any
mere male, whatever his station in life or previous condition of servitude. In short, the strangeness of Marta Hillgrove’s relationship to
the grizzled old Pardners, with the mystery of her real parentage, was not at all needed to make her the talk of the country side. She
was the kind of a girl that both men and women instinctively discuss, though for quite different reasons.

Bob Hill put his empty coffee cup down that Saturday morning with a long breath of satisfaction, and felt for the pipe and the

sack of tobacco in his shirt pocket.

“Thar’s nothin’ to it, daughter,” he remarked—his faded blue eyes twinkling and his leathery, wrinkled, old face beaming with

pride and love—“if Mother Burton learns you any more cookin’, Thad an’ me will founder ourselves sure. I’m here to maintain that
one whiff of a breakfast like that would make one of them Egypt mummies claw himself right out of his pyramid.”

Thad Grove grunted a scornful, pessimistic, protesting grunt and rubbed the top of his totally bald head with aggressive vigor.
“She ain’t your daughter, Bob Hill—not this week. It’s my turn to be daddy an’ you know it. You’re allus a-tryin’ to gouge me

out of my rights.”

Marta’s laughter was as unaffected as the song of the cardinal that at that moment was waking the cañon echoes. Patting Thad’s

arm affectionately, she said:

“Make him play fair, daddy, make him play fair. I’ll back you up every time he tries to cheat.”
“By smoke!” ejaculated Bob. “I clean disremembered what day it was to-day. But to-morrer is another week an’ she’ll be mine

all right then.” He glared at Thad triumphantly. “I tell you, Pardner, jest a-thinkin’ of me goin’ to be daddy to a gal like her makes me
all set up. I’ve sure got a feelin’ that to-morrer is the day we’ll dig clean through to our bonanza.”

“Huh,” retorted Thad. “I got a feelin’ we ain’t goin’ to dig into no bonanza to-morrer, nor nothin’ else.”
“Why not?” demanded Bob.
“’Cause to-morrer is Sunday, ain’t it? Holy Cats! but you’re a-gettin’ loonier and loonier. If you keep on a-dyin’ at the top you

won’t be fit to be daddy to nobody. I’ll jest up an’ git myself app’inted guardian for my off weeks—that’s what I’ll do.”

“I may be a-dyin’ at the top,” returned Bob, “but, by smoke, I ain’t coverin’ no alkali flat under my hat like you be. As for us

workin’ Sundays—I know we ain’t allowed, in general, but it’s a plumb sin if we can’t—jest for to-morrer—with me all set like I am.”

He looked at Marta appealingly.
“Whatever my gal says goes,” said Thad.
Bob continued persuasively:
“You see, honey, I’ve got it all figgered out that when we git in about three feet further than we’ll make to-day we’re bound to

uncover our everlastin’ fortunes. You want us all to be rich, don’t you?”

“It’s no use,” said the girl firmly. “You both know well enough that I will not permit you to break the Sabbath. Saint Jimmy’s

mother says it is no way for Christians to do, and that settles it. Anything that Mother Burton says is wrong is wrong. You both
consider yourselves Christians, don’t you?”

“You’re dead right, daughter,” said Thad, with an air of gentle complacency. “I hadn’t a mite of a notion to work on Sunday

myself. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was much of a Christian but”—he glared at his pardner—“it’s a cinch I’m no Zulu. As for
anybody that intimates we got a chance to uncover a fortune anywhere in that hole out there, between the dump and China—wal, I’d
hate to tell you what sort of a Christian I think he is.”

Bob grinned cheerfully.
“Mebby I ain’t so much of a Christian neither,” he agreed, “but if I’d a-been that old Pharaoh what built them pyramids——“
The girl interrupted:
“Now, there you go again. That’s the second time. What in the world started you to talking about Egypt and pyramids and

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Pharaoh and mummies and things like that?”

“Oh, I jest happened to take a peek into one of them books that Saint Jimmy got us to buy for you, that’s all,” returned the old-

timer, with a sly wink at the smiling girl. “An’ anyway, it seems like I ought to know somethin’ about mummies by this time, after livin’
as long as I have with that there.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger at his pardner. “Egypt or Arizona, livin’ or dead, it’s all the same, I
reckon. A mummy’s a mummy wherever you find it.”

Thad rubbed his bald head with deliberate care.
“Daughter, does Mother Burton’s brand of Christianity say anything about what a man should do to his enemies?”
“Indeed it does,” returned the girl. “It says we must love our enemies and forgive them.”
“All right—all right—an’ what does it say about lovin’ an’ forgivin’ your friends, heh?”
“Why—nothing, I guess.”
“Course it don’t,” cried the old prospector in shrill triumph.
“Course it don’t. An’ do you know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s because it’s so doggone easy to forgive an enemy compared to

what it is to forgive a friend, that’s why. The Good Book knows ’tain’t necessary to say nothin’ about friends, ’cause it’s jest as
nateral and virtuous to hate a friend as ’tis to love an enemy—that’s what I’m a-meanin’.”

Marta was not in the least disturbed over this exchange of courtesies by her two fathers. Rising from the table, she laughingly

remarked that if they were not too busy they might saddle her horse, as she must go to Oracle for supplies. Whereupon the Pardners
went to the barn, leaving their girl free to clear away the breakfast things, wash the dishes, and finish her morning housework.

It was an unwritten law of the partnership that the particular father of the week should stand obligated to the parental

responsibilities of the position. It was by no means the least of his duties that he must endure the criticisms of the other upon the way he
was “bringing up” his daughter. It seems scarcely necessary to add that criticism was never wanting and that it was never without
directness and point. To compensate for this burden of responsibility, the parent was permitted to say “my gal” while the critic, by the
rules of the game, must invariably say “that gal of yourn.”

While Thad the father was currying his daughter’s horse, Nugget—a bright little pinto—Bob squatted comfortably on his heels,

his back against the wall of the barn.

“Pardner,” he said, as one who speaks after mature deliberation, “I ain’t meanin’ to mix none in your family affairs, but as a friend

I’m a-feelin’ constrained to remark that you ain’t doin’ right by that gal of yourn nohow.”

Marta’s father was making a careful examination of the pinto’s off forefoot and seemed not to hear.
Bob continued:
“Anybody can see that she comes mighty nigh bein’ grown up. First thing you know somebody’ll make her understand all to once

that she’s a woman, and then——“

Thad dropped the pinto’s foot and glared at his pardner over the horse’s back.
“Then what?”
“Then she’ll be wantin’ to know things. An’—it might be too late to tell her.”
“You mean that I ought to tell my gal what we know about her?” demanded Marta’s father. “Is that what you’re tryin’ to say?”
“You guessed it, Pardner,” returned the critical one cheerfully. “It’s time that your gal knowed about herself. Bein’ her daddy, it’s

up to you to tell her.”

The other exploded:
“Which is exactly what I tried all last week to tell you, when you was her daddy, you blamed old numskull, an’ you wouldn’t near

listen to me. A healthy father you are. When it’s your daughter that ought to be told, you can’t even whisper, but when she’s mine you
can yell your fool head off tellin’ me what I ought to do. Besides, you said yourself that we don’t actually know enough to tell her
anything.”

“But that was last week, you see,” returned Bob calmly. “You was doin’ the talkin’ then—now I’m tellin’ you.”
When Thad, without replying, fell to rubbing Nugget’s glossy hide with such energy that the little horse squirmed like a schoolboy

undergoing maternal inspection, Bob continued:

“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest can’t have two fathers. It’s plumb unnateral, even for

two such daddies as she’s got. So far she ain’t give it much thought. She’s sort of growed up with the idea an’ accepted things as
young folks do—up to a certain time, that is. My point is, that from now on her time is liable to come any day. Right now, if she thinks
of it at all she jest smiles an’ plays the game with us, but that’s ’cause she’s mostly kid yet. You wait ’til the woman in her is woke up
—right there she’ll quit playin’ an’ somethin’ is due to happen. You ain’t doin’ right by your daughter, Thad, not to tell her—you sure
ain’t.”

Thad Grove faced his old pardner miserably. “I know you’re right, Bob. Marta ought to be told what we know about her. I can

see that it’ll look mighty bad to her some day if she ain’t. But, hang darn it, it’s jest like you said last week—we don’t know enough
for me to tell her anything. If I was to tell her what little we do know, it would look a heap sight worse to her than it possibly can with
her not bein’ told anything, like she is now. The way I figger, if the gal don’t know nothin’, she’s got a chance to ride over it; but if she
knows the little that we know she’ll be plumb ruined.”

“I don’t reckon it’s near so bad as that, Pardner,” said the other soothingly. “I’m here to tell you that there ain’t nothin’ could ruin

that gal of yourn.”

At this, the fire of old Thad’s soul flared up anew.
“Is that so?” he returned in a voice of withering scorn. “Is that so? Well, I’m a tellin’ you that you can ruin anybody.”
“Saint Jimmy, for instance?” retorted Bob with sarcasm.

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D

“Yes, Saint Jimmy. You can’t tell what sort of a scoundrel Saint Jimmy would a-been if he hadn’t happened to a-turned sick.

There’s many a man in the pen, right now, jest on account of havin’ too much good health.”

“I reckon you’re speakin’ gospel for once,” agreed Bob reluctantly. Then, as if he had not forgotten his critical privileges, he

added: “But there’s something else you ought to tell your gal—something that the best authorities all agree ought to be told every gal by
somebody—an’ bein’ as you’re her father, an’ she ain’t never had no real ma, why—it would look like it was up to you.”

“What’s that?” demanded Thad suspiciously.
“That’s what they call love,” returned the other gently. “Growin’ up like Marta has, with jest us two old, dried-up, desert rats, she

don’t know no more about love an’ its consequences than—than—nothin’.”

Marta’s father dropped his brush and kicked it viciously across the stable. Nugget danced with excitement.
“Love! Holy Cats! What fool notion’ll take you next? You don’t need to worry none. Some feller will happen along some day

an’ tell her more about love in a minute than you’ve ever knowed in all your life.”

“That’s jest it,” returned the other. “Some feller is bound to tell her, jest like you say. He’ll slip up on her quiet like, when she ain’t

suspicionin’ nothin’, an’ break it to her sudden ’fore she knows where she’s at. That’s how them consequences happen. An’ that’s
why she ought to know beforehand, so’s she can be watchin’ out.”

Thad was rubbing his bald head seeking, apparently, for an answer sufficiently crushing, when a clear call came from the house.
“Daddy—Oh, Daddy, I am ready.”
With frantic haste, the Pardners, working together as if they had never had a difference, saddled and bridled the pinto. Together

they led the little horse to the house.

When the girl was in the saddle, she looked down into their upturned faces with such an expression of girlish affection and

womanly thoughtfulness that the two old men grinned with sheepish delight and pride.

“You will find your dinner all ready for you,” she said, while Nugget tossed his head, impatient to be off. “It is on the table,

covered with a cloth. I’ll be home in time for supper. Adios.” She lifted the bridle rein and the pinto loped away.

The Pardners stood watching while she opened and closed the gate, cowboy fashion, without dismounting. With a wave of her

hand she rode on up the cañon while the two old men followed her with their eyes until she passed from sight around a turn in the
cañon wall.

Thad spoke slowly:
“You’re plumb right, Bob. The gal has mighty nigh growed into a woman, ain’t she? It don’t seem more’n a month or two neither,

does it?”

“It sure don’t,” returned the other softly. “An’ ain’t she a wonder, Thad—ain’t she jest a nateral-born wonder?”
“She’s all of that,” agreed Thad, “an’ then some. It plumb scares me though, when I think of her findin’ out about herself an’ her

all educated up by Saint Jimmy an’ his mother like she is. Holy Cats, Bob! What’ll we do?”

“She’s bound to know some day,” said Bob.
“She’s bound to, sure,” echoed Thad with a groan. “But my God a’mighty ain’t either of us got nerve to tell her now. If she

hadn’t been goin’ to school to Saint Jimmy these last five years—I mean if she was like she would a-been with jest me an’ you to bring
her up, it might not a-mattered. But now—now it’s goin’ to be plain hell for her when she finds out.”

Bob murmured softly:
“Won’t even let us work on Sundays ’cause it ain’t the right way for Christians like us to do. We’d ought to a-told long ago,

that’s what we ought to a-done.”

“Sure, we ought to told her,” cried Thad, “jest like we’d ought to done a lot of things we ain’t. But mournin’ over what ought to

been done ain’t payin’ us nothin’. What’re we goin’ to do, that’s what we got to figger out. The gal’s got to be told.”

“Yes,” returned Bob. “An’ she’s got to be told ’fore some sneakin’ varmint beats us to it an’ tells her for true what me an’ you

are only suspicionin’. How’ll you ever do it?”

“How’ll I ever do it?” shrilled Thad. “Holy Cats! I can’t—How’ll you ever do it yourself?”
Bob answered helplessly:
“I can’t neither—an’ by smoke, I won’t.”
“She’s got to be told,” insisted Thad.
“She sure has,” said Bob.

CHAPTER IV

SAINT JIMMY

Wise Mother Burton came to wonder, sometimes, if Saint Jimmy’s teaching was not more

a matter of love than even he perhaps realized.

OCTOR JIMMY BURTON and his mother spent their first year in Arizona at Tucson and Oracle. But when they were satisfied
that Jimmy could live if he gave up his too strenuous professional work and remained in the Southwest, and that if he did not

follow that course he would as surely die, they built the little white house on the mountain side at Juniper Springs, above the Cañada
del Oro. As Jimmy explained, “it was quite necessary, under the circumstances, that they live where they could see out.”

It was during that first summer in Oracle that the neighbors began to speak of his tender care of his mother, for, even in those

days when he was too ill to do more than think, his thoughts were all for her. And so lovingly did he try to shield her from the pain of

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his suffering, so cheerfully did he accustom her to the thought of the utter hopelessness of his professional future, and so courageously,
for her sake, did he accept the pitifully small portion that life offered him, that the people marveled at the spirit of the man. It was a
question, they sometimes said, with a touch of sincere reverence in their voices, if Doctor Burton needed his mother as much as the
doctor’s mother needed him. But Jimmy and his mother knew that the truth of the matter was they needed each other.

And so in their mutual need both mother and son found compensation for their dreams that now could never come true. In place

of the professional honors that were predicted with such confidence for her boy, and toward which she had looked with such pride,
the mother saw her son honored by the love of the unpretentious country folk. From plans that had failed and hopes that were buried,
Jimmy himself turned to the grandeur of the mountains and the beauty of tree and bush and flower—to the limitless spaces of the desert
and the peace of the quiet stars. The life of the great eastern city, with its hunger for fame, its struggle for riches, its endless tumult and
its restless longings, faded farther and farther away. The simple, more primitive, more peaceful life of God’s great unimproved world
became every day more satisfying.

To the roaming cowboys and miners and their kind, and to the people of the little mountain village, that tiny white house on the hill

was known. And many a man, when things were going wrong, came to spend an hour with this friend whose understanding was so
clear and whose counsel was so true. Many a girl or woman in need of comfort, strength or courage came to sit a while with Mrs.
Burton. And sometimes a tired rider of the range would hear in the twilight dusk the clear, sweet song of Jimmy’s flute and, hearing,
would smile and lift his wide-brimmed hat; or perhaps a lonely prospector, camped for the night in some gulch or wash would hear,
and, hearing, would think again of things that in his search for gold he had forgotten. And this is how Doctor James Burton became
Saint Jimmy and Saint Jimmy’s mother became Mother Burton to them all.

It was natural that the good doctor should become Marta Hillgrove’s teacher, and that Mrs. Burton should mother the girl who,

until her fathers brought her to the Cañada del Oro, had never known a woman’s guiding love. Indeed, it was Saint Jimmy and his
mother and all that their friendship meant to Marta that had kept the Pardners in that neighborhood. Never before since the beginning
of their partnership had those wanderers stayed so long in one place. For four—nearly five—years Marta had been studying under
Saint Jimmy; a fair equivalent of the usual college course. With this textbook education she had received from Mother Burton the kind
of training that such a woman would have given a daughter of her own. And yet these most excellent teachers knew no more of their
pupil’s history than did those thoughtless ones who so freely discussed the girl and looked at her askance for what they thought her
parentage might be.

It should be said, too, that this schooling which Marta had received from Saint Jimmy and his mother was wholly a matter of love.

As Doctor Burton explained to the Pardners, when they insisted that he should be paid “same as a reg’lar teacher,” the work was
really a blessing to him in that his pupil contributed more to his life than he could possibly give to hers; while Mother Burton warned the
anxious fathers, gently but firmly, that if they ever said another word about pay they would ruin everything.

But as the years passed and she watched the amazing development of the girl’s mind, and saw the unfolding of her richly

endowed womanhood, wise Mother Burton came to wonder sometimes if Saint Jimmy’s teaching was not more a matter of love than
even he perhaps realized.

On that spring morning when Marta rode to Oracle and her fathers discussed the problem that so troubled them, Saint Jimmy sat

in the yard before the cottage door. On every side he saw the Mariposa tulips lifting their lovely orange cups, and sweet pea blossoms
swinging like pink and white fairies above a lilac carpet of wild verbena and purple fragrant hyptis, while against the rocks that were
stained with splashes of gray and orange and red and yellow lichens stood the purple pentstemon. The mountain sides below were
wondrous with the scarlet glory of the ocotillo and the indescribable beauty of the chollas and opuntias with their crowns and diadems
of red and salmon and orange and pink. The slopes and benches of the lower levels were bright with great fields of golden brittle-bush;
and beyond these, on the wide spaces of the mesa, he could see the yuccas (our Lord’s candles) in countless thousands, raising their
stately shafts with eight-foot clusters of creamy-white bloom.

Mrs. Burton, leaving her housework for a moment, came to stand in the doorway. When they had spoken of the beautiful sight

that never failed to move them—calling each other’s attention to different favorite views—Saint Jimmy said:

“Mother, doesn’t it all make you sort of hungry for something—something that can’t be told in words?” he laughed in boyish

embarrassment.

His mother smiled.
“Marta will be coming from Oracle with the mail, I suppose—this is Saturday, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jimmy softly, and wondered if his mother guessed what it really was that he hungered for and could not talk

about even to her.

Mrs. Burton was turning back into the house when they heard some one coming up the trail from the cañon. A moment later the

Pardners appeared. Saint Jimmy and his mother knew at once that the old prospectors had come on business of greater moment than
to make a mere neighborly call.

When they had exchanged the customary greetings and Marta’s fathers had assured their friends that the girl was well, Thad and

Bob sat looking at each other in troubled silence.

“Wal,” said Bob, at last, “why don’t you go ahead? She’s your gal this week. Bein’ her daddy makes it your play, don’t it?”
Thad, rubbing his bald head desperately, made several ineffectual attempts to speak. At last, with a recklessness born of this

inner struggle, he addressed Mrs. Burton:

“‘You see, ma’am, me an’ my pardner here has been takin’ notice lately how my gal Marta is due, first thing we know, to be a

growed-up woman.”

“She is, indeed!” replied Jimmy’s mother with an encouraging smile.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s what me an’ Bob here took notice. An’ we’ve been figgerin’ up that mebby it was time she knowed what

we know about her. You an’ your son knows the same as everybody does, I reckon, that we ain’t Marta’s real honest-to-God

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daddies.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “but we have never, in any way, mentioned the matter to Marta.”
“No, ma’am,” said Thad, “an’ we ain’t neither.”
“An’ that’s jest what’s the matter now,” put in Bob. “The gal ain’t never been told nothin’.”
Mrs. Burton looked at her son.
“I am sure that you men are right,” said Saint Jimmy. “I have been wanting to talk with you about it. You ought to tell Marta

everything you know of her and her people—how she came to you—everything.”

The Pardners consulted each other silently. Then Thad turned to Marta’s teacher; the old prospector’s faded blue eyes were

fixed on the younger man’s face with a steady, searching gaze that permitted no evasion, even if Saint Jimmy had been disposed to
parry the question.

“Is there, to your thinkin’, any perticler reason why my gal ought to be told at this perticler time?”
Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly.
“No particular reason, so far as I know,” he said. “Of course you realize that there has always been more or less talk. Sooner or

later the girl is bound to hear it. She should be fortified with the truth.”

Again Bob and Thad looked at each other helplessly.
“An’ if the truth ain’t jest what you might call fortifyin’—what then?” said Thad at last.
“Yes,” echoed Bob. “What then? What if my pardner an’ me can’t say that all the gossips is talkin’ ain’t so?”
Saint Jimmy did not answer. Mother Burton looked away. Old Thad rubbed his bald head in mournful meditation.
“Doctor Burton,” said Bob slowly, as one feeling his way amid conversational dangers, “Thad an’ me ain’t to say blind, if we be

gittin’ old. We can still tell ‘color’ when we run across it.” He consulted his pardner with a look and Thad nodded his head in
approval. Bob continued: “We’re almighty proud of what you been doin’ for our gal,” he caught himself quickly. “Excuse me, Pardner
—for your gal, I mean.”

Thad raised his hand—a gesture which signified that, in the stress of the situation, he waived the fine point of their usual courtesy,

and for this crucial occasion acknowledged their joint fatherhood.

Old Bob swallowed, with difficulty, something that seemed to obstruct his usual freedom of speech.
“An’ I reckon you understand, sir, that we ain’t noways lackin’ in appreciation an’ gratitude to you an’ your ma for helpin’ Marta

to grow up into the young woman she is. My pardner an’ me, we sure done what we could, an’ we’d been glad to a-done more if it
had a-been possible, but it wasn’t, not for us, an’ we’re sensible to what it all means to our gal. If she wasn’t trained up an’ all
educated like you an’ your ma has made her, it wouldn’t much matter what her own folks was or how she first come to us.”

“I understand,” said Saint Jimmy gently, “and I know that the girl could not love you men more if you were, in fact, her own

fathers. I know, too, that nothing could make her love you less. But I am convinced that she should know all that you know about her.”

“We would a-told her the story long ago,” said Thad, “if only we’d a-knowed a little more than we do, or mebby, if we hadn’t

knowed as much, or if what little we do know didn’t look so almighty bad.”

“It will look a heap worse to her now than it ever did to us,” said Bob.
“It sure will,” agreed Thad, “an’ so, you see, we’ve been waitin’ an’ puttin’ it off, hopin’ that we would mebby, somehow, find

out something that, as it is, is lackin’.” He appealed to Mrs. Burton: “You can see how it is, can’t you, ma’am?”

“I understand,” said the good woman, gently, “but I agree with my son. Whatever it is, the story will make no difference in

Marta’s love for you, just as it has made no difference in your love for her.”

“Yes,” said Thad, “but how about the difference it might make to—“ he paused and looked at his pardner helplessly. “Ahem—to

—I mean——“

Bob spoke quickly:
“To you an’ Saint Jimmy, ma’am. What difference will it make to you folks?”
Thad drew a deep breath of relief and rubbed his bald head with satisfaction.
Mother Burton met them bravely with:
“Nothing that you have to tell can change our feeling for Marta. I could not love her more if she were my own daughter.”
The two old men looked at Saint Jimmy eagerly.
“You dead sure that nothin’ would make you change toward our gal?” demanded Bob.
“You plumb certain, be you, sir?” said old Thad.
Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly.
“As certain as I am of death,” he answered.
With an air of excited relief Thad faced his pardner.
“That bein’ the case I move, Pardner, that we tell Doctor Burton here what we know, an’ he can tell our gal or not as he sees fit,

and when he sees fit.”

“Jest what I was about to offer myself,” returned Bob. “You go ahead.”

CHAPTER V

THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY

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“I

“No, sir, take it anyway you like, it jest naterally looks bad; an’ that’s all me an’ my

pardner knows about it.”

T was about sixteen year ago,” Thad began at last.

“Seventeen, the middle of next month,” said Bob.

Thad continued:
“Me an’ my pardner here was comin’ in to Tucson from the Santa Rosa Mountains, which is down close to the Mexican line.

We’d been out for about three months an’ was needin’ supplies. ’Long late in the afternoon of the second day from where we’d been
workin’, we stopped at a little ranch house about three mile this side of the line for water. We knowed the old Mexican man an’
woman what lived there all right—’most everybody did—everybody like us old desert rats, that is—an’ didn’t nobody know any good
of ’em either.”

“Some claim that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother,” said Bob. “Sonora Jack, you know, is half Mex, and a mighty bad

citizen, too. He’s somewheres across the line right now, hidin’ out for a killin’ he an’ his crowd made in a hold up’ bout the same time
that we’re tellin’ you of.”

Thad took up the story.
“Well, sir, we’d filled our water bags an’ was standin’ talkin’ with the old woman who’d come to watch us—the man, he was

away it appeared—when all at once a little boy come trottin’ ’round the corner of the cabin from behind somewheres.”

“About three or four, he was,” said Bob.
“About that,” agreed Thad. “An’ when he seen us he jest stopped short, kind of scared like, an’ stood there cryin’.
“Well, sir, me an’ Bob tumbled in a holy minute that he didn’t belong there. We knowed them old Mexicans didn’t have no kid

that wasn’t growed up long ago. An’ this little chap didn’t look like a Mexican youngster nohow. The old woman acted kind of rattled
at us lookin’ at the kid so sharp, an’ started in tellin’ us that the muchachito was one of her grandsons. That sounded fair enough at
first, but when she turned an’ yelled at the kid in Mex, givin’ him the devil for not stayin’ behind the house like she’d told him to, we
seed that somethin’ was wrong. He didn’t savvy Mex no more than we do Chinee.

“While the poor little cuss was standin’ there scared stiff an’ cryin’—not knowin’ what the old woman wanted, Bob here went

down on one knee an’ held out his hands invitin’ like. ‘Come here, sonny,’ says he to the kid in English, ‘come on over here an’ let’s
have a look at you.’

“Well, sir, that youngster gave a funny little laugh, right out through his tears, an’ come runnin’.
“The old woman didn’t know what to do; but I was keepin’ one eye on her so she didn’t dare try to start anything much.
“Bob, he asked the youngster, ‘What’s your name, sonny?’ an’ the little feller answered back, bright as a dollar: ‘My name’s

Marta.’

“‘Marta?’ says Bob, lookin’ up at me puzzled like. ‘That’s a funny name for a boy.’
“‘I ain’t no boy,’ said the kid, quick as a flash, ‘I’m a girl, I am.’ ”
“An’ by smoke! she was,” ejaculated Bob.
“Yes,” continued Thad, “an’ when the old woman seen that the little gal was talkin’ to us—the old woman she didn’t savvy a

word of anything but Mex, but she could tell what was goin’ on—when she see it, she jest naterally grabbed the youngster an’...